Contents

Tony Palmer's original concept of Wagner was as a feature film. It lasted 7 hours 46 minutes, but it was later edited down to a 5-hour version in which some characters disappeared. Later the film was screened in episodes on television. In 2011 it was re-released in a three-DVD set in its full original version as a feature film, in high definition and widescreen.[1] It had earlier been released on videotape.

Wagner was released on DVD as a ten-part miniseries. Despite the fact that the separate installments are billed as episodes, only the first episode has opening credits, and only the last episode has closing credits, with all other episodes beginning and ending with abrupt scene changes.

Episode 1
Wagner is a respected composer based in Dresden where he works as royal court conductor for the King of Saxony. Although his wife, Minna, enjoys their life and status, Wagner is bored with his work for the ageing king and spends most of his time writing revolutionary pamphlets against the establishment and aristocracy. Eventually, the May Uprising breaks out in which Wagner becomes an important figure. When Saxon and Prussian troops crush the uprising, Wagner becomes a wanted man and is forced to flee to Zürich.

Episode 2
After refusing to join her husband for quite some time, Minna eventually agrees to move to Zürich to be reunited with Wagner. She manages to persuade Wagner to start conducting and composing again and urges him to travel to France. In Bordeaux he meets a wealthy Scottish emigree, Mrs Taylor, who agrees to become a patron of his, although he has a brief affair with her married daughter. Upon travelling to Paris, Wagner is ordered to leave the city at once and return to Zürich. In Zürich he meets up with his good friend Franz Liszt, while also taking on a pupil, Karl Ritter, the son of another patron, Mrs Ritter.

Episode 3
Wagner's health deteriorates and he suffers from various illnesses. Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of wealthy silk merchant Otto Wesendonck, becomes yet another one of his patrons and offers him the cottage on her estate as his residence. Once installed in the cottage, Wagner begins a passionate correspondence with Mathilde, which upsets both Mathilde's husband, Otto, and Wagner's wife, Minna, who seeks solace in increasing amounts of laudanum. Wagner, who starts composing Tristan und Isolde for Mathilde, is also visited by his good friend Hans von Bülow, and his new bride Cosima, Liszt's daughter. After a while, Minna works up the courage to confront Wagner and Mathilde about their correspondence.

Episode 4
Wagner moves to Venice to finish Tristan und Isolde. When Karl Ritter informs him that Mrs Ritter is no longer able to provide Wagner with money, he ends their friendship and travels to Paris. In Paris he is ordered by the French emperor to stage a new version of his famous opera Tannhäuser. However, the show is a fiasco when riots break out during the performance to protest both Wagner's break with artistic conventions (a ballet in the first act, instead of the second) and the involvement of one of his patrons, the Austrian Princess Metternich.

Episode 5
After the failure in Paris, Wagner travels around Europe to Switzerland, Austria and Russia. He tries staging Tristan und Isolde in Vienna, but is unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Minna continues to plead with the Dresden court for amnesty for Richard, which is eventually granted. Wagner returns but is chased away when creditors come looking for him. Destitute, Wagner tries to hide but is eventually found by Pfistermeister, personal secretary to the King of Bavaria who is desperate to meet him.

Episode 6
Wagner enjoys a prosperous time under the patronage of the young King of Bavaria. Most of his debts are settled and several of his operas are staged to great success. Meanwhile, Wagner has an affair with Cosima, wife of his good friend Hans von Bülow, much to the dismay of Cosima's father, Franz Liszt. Although Wagner and King Ludwig II have become close friends, the King's ministers and the people of Bavaria are weary of Wagner. Wagner eventually has a falling-out with the King when he asks Ludwig to pay for a portrait of Wagner which is painted as a gift to Ludwig himself.

Episode 7
Wagner must reconcile with the King and eventually does so. Their friendship grows even stronger while Ludwig's ministers are becoming increasingly suspicious of Wagner and his ever-increasing demands for money. The premiere of Tristan und Isolde has to be postponed when the lead actress falls ill but finally happens a few months later. Ludwig leaves the premiere before the end to travel into the night on board the royal train. When Bavaria faces external challenges and Wagner's lifestyle becomes too extravagant for the Bavarian people, Ludwig is finally forced to banish Wagner from his country. Meanwhile, Cosima gives birth to Wagner's daughter, while Minna dies alone, neglected by Wagner.

Episode 8
Wagner moves to Lucerne with Cosima and her children. He is later joined by King Ludwig who wishes to abdicate in order to become Wagner's assistant. Wagner convinces him to return to Bavaria, where war with Prussia erupts. Hans von Bülow eventually also visits them in Lucerne, where Cosima asks him for a divorce, which he refuses. When Hans is overly tired by his work for Wagner, he leaves, and Wagner hires Hans Richter as his new assistant. They are visited by Friedrich Nietzsche. Cosima gives birth to Wagner's son.

Episode 9
Wagner and Cosima are overjoyed by the birth of their son, Siegfried. Meanwhile, Germany continues its war with France, which finally realises Wagner's lifelong dream of a united Germany. Wagner marries Cosima and is ordered by Ludwig to stage his opera Das Rheingold. When Wagner decides to postpone the opera, one day before the premiere, he and Ludwig have a falling-out. Wagner is denied access to the theatre and decides to build his own opera house in Bayreuth.

Episode 10
Construction on the opera house in Bayreuth begins and his epic Der Ring des Nibelungen can finally be premiered. The performance is attended by Ludwig who is slowly losing his mind, while living in his gigantic new castle Neuschwanstein. Wagner and Nietzsche have a falling-out over Wagner's lifestyle and ideas (including his rampant anti-semitism). Shortly before his death, Wagner and Liszt reflect on Wagner's life: the people he has known, the events that occurred and the music he composed.

1.
Richard Burton
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Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor who was noted for his mellifluous baritone voice. Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and he was called the natural successor to Olivier by critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan. An alcoholic, Burtons failure to live up to those expectations disappointed critics and colleagues, Burton was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, but never won an Oscar. He was a recipient of BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Tony Awards for Best Actor, Burton remains closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. The couples turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news, Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr. on 10 November 1925 in a house at 2 Dan-y-bont in Pontrhydyfen, Neath Port Talbot. He was the twelfth of thirteen born to Richard Walter Jenkins Sr. Jenkins Sr. called Daddy Ni by the family, was a miner, while his mother worked as a bartender at a pub called the Miners Arms. He remembered his mother to be a strong woman and a religious soul with fair hair. Richard was barely two years old when his mother died on 31 October, six days after the birth of Graham, Ediths death was a result of postpartum infections, Richard believed it occurred due to hygiene neglect. According to biographer Michael Munn, Edith was fastidiously clean, following Ediths death, Richards elder sister Cecilia, whom he affectionately addressed as Cis, and her husband Elfed James, also a miner, took him under their care. I was immensely proud of her and she felt all tragedies except her own. Daddy Ni would occasionally visit the homes of his daughters but was otherwise absent. Another important figure in Richards early life was Ifor, his brother,19 years his senior, a miner and rugby union player, Ifor ruled the household with the proverbial firm hand. He was also responsible for nurturing a passion for Rugby in young Richard, although Richard also played cricket, tennis, and table tennis, biographer Bragg notes rugby union football to be his greatest interest. On rugby, Richard said he would rather have played for Wales at Cardiff Arms Park than Hamlet at The Old Vic, the Welsh rugby union centre, Bleddyn Williams believed Richard had distinct possibilities as a player. From the age of five to eight, Richard was educated at the Eastern Primary School while he attended the Boys segment of the school from eight to twelve years old. He took an exam for admission into Port Talbot Secondary School in March 1937. Biographer Hollis Alpert notes that both Daddy Ni and Ifor considered Richards education to be of paramount importance and planned to send him to the University of Oxford, Richard became the first member of his family to go to secondary school

2.
Vanessa Redgrave
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Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist. She is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, and she also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy. On screen, she has starred in scores of films and is a six-time Oscar nominee and her other nominations were for Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment, Isadora, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Bostonians and Howards End. Among her other films are A Man for All Seasons, Blowup, Camelot, The Devils, Murder on the Orient Express, Prick Up Your Ears, Mission, Impossible, Atonement, Coriolanus and The Butler. Redgrave was born in Greenwich, London, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave, laurence Olivier announced her birth to the audience at a performance of Hamlet at the Old Vic, when he said that Laertes had a daughter. She was educated at the Alice Ottley School, Worcester, and Queens Gate School, London and her siblings, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, were also acclaimed actors. Vanessa Redgrave entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and she first appeared in the West End, playing opposite her brother, in 1958. In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolts The Tiger, in 1961, she played Rosalind in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1962, she played Imogen in William Gaskills production of Cymbeline for the RSC. In 1966, Redgrave created the role of Jean Brodie in the Donald Albery production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and she won four Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress in four decades. In 2003 she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey Into Night. In January 2006, Redgrave was presented the Ibsen Centennial Award for her work in interpreting many of Henrik Ibsens works over the last decades. Previous recipients of the award include Liv Ullmann, Glenda Jackson, for this, she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. She reprised the role at the Lyttelton Theatre at the Royal National Theatre in London to mixed reviews and she also spent a week performing the work at the Theatre Royal in Bath in September 2008. She once again performed the role of Joan Didion for a benefit at New Yorks Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on 26 October 2009. The performance was originally slated to debut on 27 April, but was pushed due to the death of Redgraves daughter Natasha, the proceeds for the benefit were donated to the United Nations Childrens Fund and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Both charities work to help for the children of Gaza. In October 2010, she starred in the Broadway premiere of Driving Miss Daisy starring in the role opposite James Earl Jones

3.
Marthe Keller
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Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress and opera director. Marthe studied ballet as a child, but stopped after an accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre, kellers earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin and the German film Wilder Reiter GmbH. She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including Un cave, La raison du plus fou and she also acted alongside William Holden in Billy Wilders 1978 romantic drama Fedora. After 1978, Keller worked more steadily in European cinema compared to American movies and her later films include Dark Eyes, with Marcello Mastroianni. In April 2016, she was announced as the President of the Jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and she was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance. In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in music as a speaker. She has performed the role of Joan of Arc in Arthur Honeggers oratorio Jeanne dArc au Bûcher on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa, Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinskys Perséphone. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital, the Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama Cassandre, after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994. Kellers first production as a director was Dialogues des Carmélites. This production subsequently received a performance in London that year. She has also directed Lucia di Lammermoor for Washington National Opera and her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of Don Giovanni. Keller has one son, Alexandre, from her relationship with director Philippe de Broca, Marthe Keller at the Internet Movie Database Yahoo. Movies biography of Marthe Keller Marthe Keller at AllMovie

4.
John Gielgud
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Sir Arthur John Gielgud OM CH was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trio of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terrys company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre, during the 1930s Gielgud was a stage star in the West End and on Broadway, appearing in new works and classics. He began a career as a director, and set up his own company at the Queens Theatre. He was regarded by many as the finest Hamlet of his era, in the 1950s Gielgud feared that his career was threatened when he was convicted and fined for a homosexual offence, but his colleagues and the public supported him loyally. From the late 1960s he found new plays that suited him, by authors including Alan Bennett, David Storey, during the first half of his career, Gielgud did not take the cinema seriously. Though he made his first film in 1924, and had successes with The Good Companions and Julius Caesar, Gielgud appeared in more than sixty films between Becket, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, and Elizabeth. As the acid-tongued Hobson in Arthur he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and his film work further earned him a Golden Globe Award and two BAFTAs. Although largely indifferent to awards, Gielgud had the distinction of winning an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy. He was famous from the start of his career for his voice and he broadcast more than a hundred radio and television dramas, between 1929 and 1994, and made commercial recordings of many plays, including ten of Shakespeares. Among his honours, he was knighted in 1953 and the Gielgud Theatre was named after him, from 1977 to 1989, he was president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Gielgud was born in South Kensington, London, the third of the four children and youngest of three sons of Frank Henry Gielgud and his second wife, Kate Terry-Gielgud, née Terry-Lewis. The two elder boys were Lewis, who became an official of the Red Cross and UNESCO. On his fathers side, Gielgud was of Lithuanian and Polish descent, the surname derives from Gelgaudiškis, a village in Lithuania. The Counts Gielgud had owned the Gielgudziszki Castle on the River Niemen, jan Gielgud took refuge in England with his family, one of his grandchildren was Frank Gielgud, whose maternal grandmother was a famous Polish actress, Aniela Aszpergerowa. Frank married into a family with wide theatrical connections, Frank had no theatrical ambitions and worked all his life as a stockbroker in the City of London. In 1912, aged eight, Gielgud went to Hillside preparatory school in Surrey as his brothers had done

5.
Ralph Richardson
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Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He worked in films throughout most of his career, and played more than sixty cinema roles, from an artistic but not theatrical background, Richardson had had no thought of a stage career until a production of Hamlet in Brighton inspired him to become an actor. He learned his craft in the 1920s with a touring company, in 1931 he joined the Old Vic, playing mostly Shakespearean roles. He led the company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had him much about stage technique. After he left the company, a series of leading roles took him to stardom in the West End, in the 1940s, together with Olivier and John Burrell, Richardson was the co-director of the Old Vic company. There, his most celebrated roles included Peer Gynt and Falstaff, in the 1950s, in the West End and occasionally on tour, Richardson played in modern and classic works including The Heiress, Home at Seven, and Three Sisters. He continued on stage and in films until shortly before his death at the age of eighty. He was celebrated in later years for his work with Peter Halls National Theatre and he was not known for his portrayal of the great tragic roles in the classics, preferring character parts in old and new plays. Richardsons film career began as an extra in 1931 and he was soon cast in leading roles in British and American films including Things to Come, The Fallen Idol, Long Days Journey into Night and Doctor Zhivago. He received nominations and awards in the UK, Europe and the US for his stage and screen work from 1948 until his death. Richardson was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, first for The Heiress and again for his film, Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan. Throughout his career, and increasingly in later years, Richardson was known for his behaviour on. He was often seen as detached from conventional ways of looking at the world, Richardson was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the third son and youngest child of Arthur Richardson and his wife Lydia. The couple had met while both were in Paris, studying with the painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Arthur Richardson had been senior art master at Cheltenham Ladies College from 1893. In 1907 the family split up, there was no divorce or formal separation, the ostensible cause of the couples separation was a row over Lydias choice of wallpaper for her husbands study. According to John Millers biography, whatever underlying causes there may have been are unknown, an earlier biographer, Garry OConnor, speculates that Arthur Richardson might have been having an extramarital affair. Mother and son had a variety of homes, the first of which was a converted from two railway carriages in Shoreham-by-Sea on the south coast of England. Lydia wanted Richardson to become a priest, in Brighton he served as an altar boy, which he enjoyed, but when sent at about fifteen to the nearby Xaverian College, a seminary for trainee priests, he ran away

6.
Laurence Olivier
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Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles, late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles. His family had no connections, but Oliviers father, a clergyman. After attending a school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Cowards Private Lives, in 1935 he played in a celebrated production of Romeo and Juliet alongside Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, there his most celebrated roles included Shakespeares Richard III and Sophocless Oedipus. From 1963 to 1973 he was the director of Britains National Theatre. His own parts there included the role in Othello and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Among Oliviers films are Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor-director, Henry V, Hamlet and his later films included Sleuth, Marathon Man, and The Boys from Brazil. His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence, Long Days Journey into Night, Love Among the Ruins, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brideshead Revisited, Oliviers honours included a knighthood, a life peerage and the Order of Merit. For his on-screen work he received four Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. The National Theatres largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, given annually by the Society of London Theatre. He was married three times, to the actresses Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest of the three children of the Revd Gerard Kerr Olivier and his wife Agnes Louise, née Crookenden. Their elder children were Sybille and Gerard Dacres Dickie and his great-great-grandfather was of French Huguenot descent, and Olivier came from a long line of Protestant clergymen. Gerard Olivier had begun a career as a schoolmaster, but in his thirties he discovered a strong religious vocation and was ordained as a priest of the Church of England and he practised extremely high church, ritualist Anglicanism and liked to be addressed as Father Olivier. This made him unacceptable to most Anglican congregations, and the church posts he was offered were temporary. This meant a nomadic existence, and for Laurences first few years, in 1912, when Olivier was five, his father secured a permanent appointment as assistant priest at St Saviours, Pimlico. He held the post for six years, and a family life was at last possible

7.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle

8.
Vittorio Storaro
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In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild judged Storaro one of historys ten most influential cinematographers. The son of a film projectionist, Storaro began studying photography at the age of 11 and he went on to formal cinematography studies at the national Italian film school, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, when he was 18. Working as an operator for many years, he was on his first film as cinematographer for Giovinezza, Giovinezza in 1968. In 1970, he photographed Luccello dalle piume di cristallo, the first film directed by Dario Argento. He has worked with many important film directors, in particular Bernardo Bertolucci, with whom he has had a collaboration, as well as Francis Ford Coppola, Carlos Saura. He was also cinematographer for a BBC co-production with Italian broadcaster RAI of Verdis Rigoletto over two nights on the weekend of 4 and 5 September 2010. Storaro’s first mainstream American film was Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1979, Coppola gave Storaro free rein on the films visual look and it is regarded by many critics as one of the most visually spectacular films of all time. He has also received Oscars for Reds and The Last Emperor, dick Tracy garnered him a fourth nomination. With his son, Fabrizio Storaro, he created the Univisium format system to all future theatrical. In 2002, Storaro completed the first in a series of books that attempt to articulate his philosophy of cinematography more substantively, Storaro is known for stylish, fastidious, and flamboyant personal fashion. Francis Ford Coppola once noted that Storaro was the man he ever knew that could fall off a ladder in a white suit, into the mud

9.
Richard Wagner
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Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and his advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music, Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, until his final years, Wagners life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century, his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, where his family lived at No. 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter and he was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine. Wagners father Carl died of typhus six months after Richards birth, afterwards his mother Johanna lived with Carls friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has found in the Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyers residence in Dresden, until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father, Geyers love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel, in late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzels school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyers death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, at the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Webers opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright and his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare

10.
Ludwig II of Bavaria
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Ludwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He is sometimes called the Swan King or der Märchenkönig and he also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, and Duke in Swabia. He succeeded to the throne aged 18, two years later Bavaria and Austria fought a war against Prussia, which they lost. However, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 Bavaria sided with Prussia against France and he commissioned the construction of two lavish palaces and the Neuschwanstein Castle, and was a devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner. Ludwig spent all his royal revenues on these projects, borrowed extensively and this extravagance was used against him to declare him insane, an accusation which has since come under scrutiny. Today, his architectural and artistic legacy includes many of Bavarias most important tourist attractions, born in Nymphenburg Palace, he was the elder son of Maximilian II of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach, and his wife Princess Marie of Prussia. His younger brother, born three years later, was named Otto, like many young heirs in an age when kings governed most of Europe, Ludwig was continually reminded of his royal status. King Maximilian wanted to both of his sons in the burdens of royal duty from an early age. Ludwig was both extremely indulged and severely controlled by his tutors and subjected to a regimen of study. There are some who point to these stresses of growing up in a family as the causes for much of his odd behavior as an adult. Ludwig was not close to either of his parents, King Maximilians advisers had suggested that on his daily walks he might like, at times, to be accompanied by his future successor. The King replied, But what am I to say to him, after all, my son takes no interest in what other people tell him. Later, Ludwig would refer to his mother as my predecessors consort and he was far closer to his grandfather, the deposed and notorious King Ludwig I, who came from a family of eccentrics. Ludwigs childhood years did have happy moments and he lived for much of the time at Castle Hohenschwangau, a fantasy castle his father had built near the Alpsee near Füssen. It was decorated in the Gothic Revival style with frescoes depicting heroic German sagas. The family also visited Lake Starnberg, as an adolescent, Ludwig became close friends with his aide de camp, Prince Paul, a member of Bavarias wealthy Thurn und Taxis family. The two young men together, read poetry aloud, and staged scenes from the Romantic operas of Richard Wagner. The friendship ended when Paul became engaged in 1866, during his youth Ludwig also initiated a lifelong friendship with his cousin, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, later Empress of Austria

11.
Georg Solti
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Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and his career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and being of Jewish background he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist. After the war, Solti was appointed director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1946. In 1952 he moved to the Frankfurt Opera, where he remained in charge for nine years and he took West German citizenship in 1953. In 1961 he became director of the Covent Garden Opera Company. During his ten-year tenure, he introduced changes that raised standards to the highest international levels, under his musical directorship the status of the company was recognised with the grant of the title the Royal Opera. He became a British citizen in 1972, in 1969 Solti became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for 22 years. He relinquished the position in 1991 and became the music director laureate. Known in his early years for the intensity of his music making and he recorded many works two or three times at various stages of his career, and was a prolific recording artist, making more than 250 recordings, including 45 complete opera sets. The most famous of his recordings is probably Deccas complete set of Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen, Soltis Ring has twice been voted the greatest recording ever made, in polls for Gramophone magazine in 1999 and the BBCs Music Magazine in 2012. Solti was repeatedly honoured by the industry with awards throughout his career. Solti also received the Academy’s 1995 Lifetime Achievement Award, Solti was born György Stern on Maros utca, in the Hegyvidék district of the Buda side of Budapest. He was the younger of the two children of Móricz Stern and his wife Teréz, née Rosenbaum, both of whom were Jewish, in the aftermath of the First World War it became the accepted practice in Hungary for citizens with Germanic surnames to adopt Hungarian ones. The right wing regime of Admiral Horthy enacted a series of Hungarianisation laws, Mor Stern, a self-employed merchant, felt no need to change his surname, but thought it prudent to change that of his children. He renamed them after Solt, a town in central Hungary. His sons given name, György, was acceptably Hungarian and was not changed, Solti described his father as a kind, sweet man who trusted everyone. He shouldnt have, but he did, jews in Hungary were tremendously patriotic

12.
Neuschwanstein Castle
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Neuschwanstein Castle is a nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat, Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds. The palace was intended as a refuge for the reclusive king. Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle, more than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer. The municipality of Schwangau lies at an elevation of 800 m at the south west border of the German state of Bavaria and its surroundings are characterized by the transition between the Alpine foothills in the south and a hilly landscape in the north that appears flat by comparison. In the Middle Ages, three castles overlooked the villages, in 1832, Ludwigs father King Maximilian II of Bavaria bought its ruins to replace them with the comfortable neo-Gothic palace known as Hohenschwangau Castle. Finished in 1837, the palace became his familys summer residence, vorderhohenschwangau Castle and Hinterhohenschwangau Castle sat on a rugged hill overlooking Schwanstein Castle, two nearby lakes, and the village. Separated only by a moat, they consisted of a hall, a keep. In the nineteenth century only ruins remained of the medieval castles. The ruins above the palace were known to the crown prince from his excursions. He first sketched one of them in his diary in 1859, when the young king came to power in 1864, the construction of a new palace in place of the two ruined castles became the first in his series of palace building projects. Ludwig called the new palace New Hohenschwangau Castle, only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein, Neuschwanstein embodies both the contemporaneous architectural fashion known as castle romanticism, and Ludwig IIs immoderate enthusiasm for the operas of Richard Wagner. In the nineteenth century, many castles were constructed or reconstructed, the king saw both buildings as representatives of a romantic interpretation of the Middle Ages as well as the musical mythology of his friend Richard Wagner. Wagners operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had made an impression on him. In February 1868, Ludwigs grandfather Ludwig I died, freeing the considerable sums that were spent on the abdicated kings appanage. This allowed Ludwig II to start the project of building a private refuge in the familiar landscape far from the capital Munich. The building design was drafted by the stage designer Christian Jank, for technical reasons, the ruined castles could not be integrated into the plan. The king insisted on a plan and on personal approval of each

13.
Herrenchiemsee
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Herrenchiemsee is a complex of royal buildings on Herreninsel, an island in the Chiemsee, Bavarias largest lake,60 km south east of Munich. Together with the island of Frauenchiemsee and the uninhabited Krautinsel it forms the municipality of Chiemsee. According to tradition, the Benedictine abbey of Herrenchiemsee was established about 765 by Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria at the tip of the Herreninsel. New findings however indicate an earlier foundation around 620/29 by the missionary Saint Eustace of Luxeuil. In 969 Emperor Otto I consigned the abbey to the Archbishops of Salzburg, in the course of the German Mediatisation, Herrenchiemsee Abbey was secularised in 1803 and the Chiemsee bishopric finally dissolved in 1808. The island was sold, various owners demolished the cathedral. Plans for the deforestation of the island were blocked by King Ludwig II. He had the buildings converted for his private use, the complex that later became known as the Old Palace. The unfinished New Palace was designed by Christian Jank, Franz von Seitz, between 1863 and 188616,579,674 Marks were spent on construction. Using a 0.2304 troy ounce 189020 Mark gold coin as a benchmark, this equates to 190,998 oz of gold, Ludwig only had the opportunity to stay within the Palace for a few days in September 1885. After his death by drowning at just 40 in the year, all construction work discontinued. In 1923 Crown Prince Rupprecht gave the palace to the State of Bavaria, unlike the medieval themed Neuschwanstein Castle begun in 1869, the Neo-Baroque New Palace stands as a monument to Ludwigs admiration of King Louis XIV of France. Its great hall of mirrors ceiling is painted with 25 tableaux showing Louis XIV at his best, the palace was shaped in a W with wings flanking a central edifice. Only 16 of the 70 rooms were on the ground floor and it was to have been an equivalent to the Palace of Versailles, but only the central portion was built before the king died and construction was discontinued with 50 of the 70 rooms still incomplete. It was never intended to be an exact replica of the French royal palace. Like Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors has 17 arches, the Hall of Peace, the window niches at Herrenchiemsee are wider than those at Versailles, making its central façade a few metres wider. The dining room features a table and the worlds largest Meissen porcelain chandelier. Technologically, the building also benefits from two centuries of progress

14.
Munich Residenz
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The Munich Residenz is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs of the House of Wittelsbach in the centre of the city of Munich, Germany. The Residenz is the largest city palace in Germany and is open to visitors for its architecture, room decorations. The complex of buildings contains ten courtyards and displays 130 rooms, the three main parts are the Königsbau, the Alte Residenz and the Festsaalbau. A wing of the Festsaalbau contains the Cuvilliés Theatre since the reconstruction of the Residenz after World War II and it also houses the Herkulessaal, the primary concert venue for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Byzantine Court Church of All Saints at the east side is facing the Marstall, the building for the former Court Riding School and the royal stables. The first buildings at this site were erected in the year 1385 and were financed by the township of Munich as a sanction for an uprising against Stephen III. The Silver Tower, as the strongest bastion, was situated next to the inner walls protecting the castle against the city. As a result, they sought to build themselves a shelter impregnable, the gothic foundation walls and the basement vaults of the old castle are the oldest surviving parts of the palace. Finally, after more than four centuries of development, the giant palace had practically replaced a former city quarter with barracks. It assembles the styles of the late Renaissance, as well as of Baroque, Rococo, with the order of William IV to expand the Neuveste with the so-called Rundstubenbau and to set up the first Court Garden began the history of the Munich Residence as a representative palace. To the history cycle of this garden pavilion belonged once also the Battle of Issus of Albrecht Altdorfer. Under Albert V Wilhelm Egkl built next to a hall of the Neuveste an art chamber in the building of the former ducal stables. Since there was not enough space for the collection of sculptures. It had to be built outside the castle, as there was no place in the Neuveste, William V ordered the construction of the Witwenstock for the dowager Duchess Anna and in 1581-1586 the four wings of the Grottenhof. Around 1590 the construction of the Black Hall was begun to the southeast on the Antiquarium, under direction of Sustris the Erbprinzentrakt, north of the Witwenstock was added. Maximilian I commissioned what is now called the Maximilian Residenz, the west wing of the palace, until the 19th century, it was the only publicly visible facade and it still is preserved. The portals are guarded by two lions and a statue of the Virgin Mary as patroness of Bavaria in a niche between the portals on the west side of the residence complex. Maximilian had rebuilt and connected the existing buildings, in addition, Maximilian I had from 1612 large parts of the south and west wings of the Neuveste with the Silver Tower demolished

15.
Siena
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Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena, the historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nations most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008, Siena is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and the Palio, a horse race held twice a year. Siena, like other Tuscan hill towns, was first settled in the time of the Etruscans when it was inhabited by a called the Saina. A Roman town called Saena Julia was founded at the site in the time of the Emperor Augustus, the first document mentioning it dates from AD70. Some archaeologists assert that Siena was controlled for a period by a Gaulish tribe called the Senones, according to local legend, Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus and thus nephews of Romulus, after whom Rome was named. Supposedly after their fathers murder by Romulus, they fled Rome, taking them the statue of the she-wolf suckling the infants. Additionally they rode white and black horses, giving rise to the Balzana, some claim the name Siena derives from Senius. Other etymologies derive the name from the Etruscan family name Saina, Siena did not prosper under Roman rule. It was not sited near any major roads and lacked opportunities for trade and its insular status meant that Christianity did not penetrate until the 4th century AD, and it was not until the Lombards invaded Siena and the surrounding territory that it knew prosperity. Siena prospered as a trading post, and the constant streams of pilgrims passing to, the oldest aristocratic families in Siena date their line to the Lombards surrender in 774 to Charlemagne. This ultimately resulted in the creation of the Republic of Siena, the Republic existed for over four hundred years, from the late 11th century until the year 1555. During the golden age of Siena before the Black Death in 1348, in the Italian War of 1551–59, the republic was defeated by the rival Duchy of Florence in alliance with the Spanish crown. After 18 months of resistance, Siena surrendered to Spain on 17 April 1555, the new Spanish King Felipe II, owing huge sums to the Medici, ceded it to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to which it belonged until the unification of Italy in the 19th century. A Republican government of 700 Sienese families in Montalcino resisted until 1559, the picturesque city remains an important cultural centre, especially for humanist disciplines. The city lies at 322 m above sea level, the Siena Cathedral, begun in the 12th century, is a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque-Gothic architecture. Its main façade was completed in 1380, the original plan called for an ambitiously massive basilica, the largest then in the world, with, as was customary, an east-west nave. However, the scarcity of funds, in due to war and plague, truncated the project

16.
Tuscany
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Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, traditions, history, artistic legacy, Tuscany produces wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano and Brunello di Montalcino. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, it is considered a nation within a nation. Tuscany is traditionally a popular destination in Italy, and the main tourist destinations by number of tourist arrivals are Florence, Pisa, Montecatini Terme, Castiglione della Pescaia and Grosseto. The village of Castiglione della Pescaia is also the most visited destination in the region. Additionally, Siena, Lucca, the Chianti region, Versilia and Val dOrcia are also internationally renowned, Tuscany has over 120 protected nature reserves, making Tuscany and its capital Florence popular tourist destinations that attract millions of tourists every year. In 2012, the city of Florence was the worlds 89th most visited city, roughly triangular in shape, Tuscany borders the regions of Liguria to the northwest, Emilia-Romagna to the north and east, Umbria to the east and Lazio to the southeast. The comune of Badia Tedalda, in the Tuscan Province of Arezzo, has an exclave named Ca Raffaello within Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany has a western coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea, containing the Tuscan Archipelago, of which the largest island is Elba. Tuscany has an area of approximately 22,993 square kilometres, surrounded and crossed by major mountain chains, and with few plains, the region has a relief that is dominated by hilly country used for agriculture. Hills make up nearly two-thirds of the total area, covering 15,292 square kilometres, and mountains. Plains occupy 8. 4% of the total area—1,930 square kilometres —mostly around the valley of the River Arno, many of Tuscanys largest cities lie on the banks of the Arno, including the capital Florence, Empoli and Pisa. The pre-Etruscan history of the area in the late Bronze and Iron Ages parallels that of the early Greeks, following this, the Villanovan culture saw Tuscany, and the rest of Etruria, taken over by chiefdoms. City-states developed in the late Villanovan before Orientalization occurred and the Etruscan civilization rose, the Etruscans created the first major civilization in this region, large enough to establish a transport infrastructure, to implement agriculture and mining and to produce vibrant art. The Etruscans lived in Etruria well into prehistory, throughout their existence, they lost territory to Magna Graecia, Carthage and Celts. Despite being seen as distinct in its manners and customs by contemporary Greeks, the cultures of Greece, one reason for its eventual demise was this increasing absorption by surrounding cultures, including the adoption of the Etruscan upper class by the Romans. Soon after absorbing Etruria, Rome established the cities of Lucca, Pisa, Siena, and Florence, endowed the area with new technologies and development, and ensured peace. These developments included extensions of existing roads, introduction of aqueducts and sewers, however, many of these structures have been destroyed by erosion due to weather. The Roman civilization in the West collapsed in the 5th century AD, in the years following 572, the Longobards arrived and designated Lucca the capital of their Duchy of Tuscia

17.
Gandhi (film)
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Gandhi was written by John Briley and produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. It stars Ben Kingsley in the title role, although a practising Hindu, Gandhis embracing of other faiths, particularly Christianity and Islam, is also depicted. Gandhi was released in India on 30 November 1982, in the United Kingdom on 3 December and it was nominated for Academy Awards in eleven categories, winning eight, including Best Picture. Richard Attenborough won for Best Director, and Ben Kingsley won for Best Actor, the screenplay of Gandhi is available as a published book. The film opens with a statement from the filmmakers explaining their approach to the problem of filming Gandhis complex life story, There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record, the film begins on the day of Gandhis assassination on 30 January 1948. After an evening prayer, an elderly Gandhi is helped out for his walk to meet a large number of greeters and admirers. One of these visitors, Nathuram Godse, shoots him point blank in the chest, the film then cuts to a huge procession at his funeral, which is attended by dignitaries from around the world. The early life of Gandhi is not depicted in the film, realising the laws are biased against Indians, he then decides to start a nonviolent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. After numerous arrests and unwelcome international attention, the government finally relents by recognising some rights for Indians, after this victory, Gandhi is invited back to India, where he is now considered something of a national hero. He is urged to take up the fight for Indias independence, Gandhi agrees, and mounts a nonviolent non-cooperation campaign of unprecedented scale, coordinating millions of Indians nationwide. There are some setbacks, such as violence against the protesters, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is also depicted in the film. Nevertheless, the campaign generates great attention, and Britain faces intense public pressure, after World War II, Britain finally grants Indian independence. Indians celebrate this victory, but their troubles are far from over, the country is subsequently divided by religion. It is decided that the northwest area and the part of India. It is hoped that by encouraging the Muslims to live in a separate country, Gandhi is opposed to the idea, and is even willing to allow Muhammad Ali Jinnah to become the first prime minister of India, but the Partition of India is carried out nevertheless. Religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims erupt into nationwide violence, horrified, Gandhi declares a hunger strike, saying he will not eat until the fighting stops. Gandhi spends his last days trying to bring peace between both nations

18.
Reds (film)
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Reds is a 1981 American epic drama film co-written, produced and directed by Warren Beatty. The picture centers on the life and career of John Reed, Beatty stars in the lead role alongside Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant and Jack Nicholson as Eugene ONeill. The supporting cast includes Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, Gene Hackman, Ramon Bieri, Nicolas Coster, Beatty was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director and the film was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Chariots of Fire. Beatty, Keaton, Nicholson and Stapleton were nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, Stapleton was the only one of the four to win. Beatty was also nominated, along with co-writer Trevor Griffiths, for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Beatty became the third person to be nominated for Academy Awards in the categories Best Actor, Director and Original Screenplay for a film nominated for Best Picture. In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its Ten Top Ten – the best ten films in ten classic American film genres – after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community, Reds was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the epic genre. In 1915, married socialite Louise Bryant encounters the radical journalist John Reed for the first time at a lecture in Portland, Oregon, and she is intrigued with his idealism. Upon meeting him for an interview on international politics which lasts over the course of a night, later, they move to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to concentrate on their writing, becoming involved in the local theatre scene. Through her writing, Bryant becomes a feminist and radical in her own right, Reed becomes involved in labor strikes with the Reds of the Communist Labor Party of America. Obsessed with changing the world, he grows restless and heads for St. Louis to cover the 1916 Democratic Convention, during Reeds absence, Bryant falls into a complicated affair with ONeill. Upon his return, Reed discovers the truth about the affair, the two marry secretly and make a home together in Croton-on-Hudson, north of New York City, but still have conflicting desires. When Reed admits to his own infidelities, Bryant takes a ship to Europe to work as a war correspondent, after a flare-up of a kidney disorder, Reed is warned to avoid excessive travel or stress, but he decides to take the same path. Reunited as professionals, the two find their passion rekindled as they are swept up in the fall of Russias Czarist regime, the second part of the film takes place shortly after the publication of Ten Days that Shook the World. While attempting to leave Europe, he is imprisoned and interrogated in Finland. He returns to Russia and is reunited with Bryant at the station in Moscow. By this point, Reed is growing weaker as a result of his kidney disorder. Bryant helps nurse the ailing Reed, who eventually dies, Beatty came across the story of John Reed in the mid-1960s and executive producer and film editor Dede Allen remembers Beattys mentioning making a film about Reeds life as early as 1966. Originally titled Comrades, the first script was written by Beatty in 1969, in 1976, Beatty found a suitable collaborator in Trevor Griffiths who began work but was delayed when his wife died in a plane crash

19.
Abel Gance
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Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films, Jaccuse, La Roue, and the monumental Napoléon. Born in Paris in 1889, Abel Gance was the son of a prosperous doctor, Abel Flamant. Initially taking his mothers name, he was brought up until the age of eight by his grandparents in the coal mining town of Commentry in central France. He then returned to Paris to rejoin his mother who had by then married Adolphe Gance and he started working as a clerk in a solicitors office, but after a couple of years he turned to acting in the theatre. When he was 18, he was given a contract at the Théâtre Royal du Parc in Brussels, where he developed friendships with the actor Victor Francen. While in Brussels, Gance wrote his first film scenarios, which he sold to Léonce Perret, back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first film, Perrets Molière. At that stage he regarded the cinema as infantile and stupid and was drawn into film jobs by his poverty, but he nevertheless continued to write scenarios. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, often fatal at that time, Gance tried to maintain a connection with the theatre and he finished writing a monumental tragedy entitled Victoire de Samothrace, in which he hoped that Sarah Bernhardt would star. Its five-hour length, and Gances refusal to cut it, proved to be a stumbling block, with the outbreak of World War I, Gance was rejected by the army on medical grounds and in 1915 he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film dArt. He soon caused controversy with La Folie du docteur Tube, a fantasy in which he. The producers were outraged and refused to show the film, Gance nevertheless continued working for Film dArt until 1918, making over a dozen commercially successful films. His experiments included tracking shots, extreme close-ups, low-angle shots and his subjects moved steadily away from simple action films towards psychological melodramas, such as Mater dolorosa starring Emmy Lynn as a neglected wife who has an affair with her husbands brother. The film was a commercial success, and it was followed by La Dixième Symphonie. Here Gances mastery of lighting, composition and editing was accompanied by a range of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and he re-enlisted in the Service Cinématographique in order to be able to film some scenes on a real battlefield at the front. The film made an impact and went on to have international distribution. He employed elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of cutting which made the film highly influential among other contemporary directors. The finished film was originally in 32 reels and ran for nine hours

20.
Minna Planer
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Christine Wilhelmine Minna Planer was a German actress and the first wife of composer Richard Wagner, to whom she was married for 30 years, although for the last 10 years they often lived apart. At an early age, she had a daughter with a Royal Saxon Army officer. After a stormy courtship, which involved infidelities on both sides, she married Richard Wagner in 1836. In the early years Minna was the wage earner in the household. After Wagners affair with Mathilde Wesendonck in 1857, Minna mostly lived apart from him, in later years she developed a heart condition which ultimately claimed her life. Minna Planer was born on 5 September 1809 to a former Army trumpeter, Gotthelf Planer, in Oederan, Kingdom of Saxony. She was brought up in poverty and then at the age of fifteen was seduced by Ernst Rudolf von Einsiedel, a captain in the King of Saxonys Guards, who abandoned her after making her pregnant. Minna was sent to her relatives in the country to conceal the pregnancy, Minna pursued a career as an actress, specialising in female juvenile lead roles in tragedies. She was in demand by many German theatre companies, and appeared in Dessau, Altenburg, Magdeburg and Dresden before she met Richard Wagner. In a letter dated December 27,1833, Minna sets out her conditions for employment, she would not accept guest appearances and her fee was 600 thaler plus travelling expenses. While she was praised for her abilities as an actress, her physical charms also brought her admiration, One anonymous suitor wrote to her, When Nature created you, O Fair One, she broke the mold and never more may create so fair an image. Ah, I have known you long, you splendid creature, beautiful in youth, in 1834 Minna was appearing as part of Heinrich Eduard Bethmanns Magdeburg Theatre Company during a summer season at Bad Lauchstädt, a spa resort near Halle. The 21-year-old Wagner changed his mind and accepted the contract in order to pursue her, Minnas relationship with Wagner was stormy, Wagner was jealous and possessive and there were frequent loud arguments which usually ended with Minna in tears. In November 1835 Minna, dissatisfied with the Magdeburg troupe and probably with Wagner as well, Wagner was wild with despair and implored her to come back and marry him. Minna eventually agreed to return, but stayed only to the end of the season in Magdeburg before heading to Königsberg to join the theatre company. Failing in this, he joined Minna in Königsberg and accepted a position as a junior conductor. Minna married Wagner in Tragheim Church on 26 November 1836, where they argued even in front of the minister who was to marry them, Minna soon found that being Wagners wife was not the route to respectability that she craved. Wagner continued to run up debts, and she frequently had to deal with not only from Königsberg

21.
Cosima Wagner
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Cosima Wagner was the illegitimate daughter of the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt and Marie dAgoult. Commentators have recognised Cosima as the inspiration for Wagners later works. In 1857, after a childhood largely spent under the care of her grandmother and with governesses, although the marriage produced two children, it was largely a loveless union, and in 1863 Cosima began a relationship with Wagner, who was 24 years her senior. She shared Wagners convictions of German cultural and racial superiority, and under her influence and this was a defining feature of Bayreuth for decades, into the Nazi era which closely followed her death in 1930. Thus, although she is perceived as the saviour of the festival. In January 1833 the 21-year-old Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt met Marie dAgoult, maries antecedents were mixed, her German mother, from a prominent Frankfurt banking family, had married a French nobleman, the Comte de Flavigny. Marie had been married since 1827 to Charles, Comte dAgoult, drawn together by their mutual intellectual interests, Marie and Liszt embarked on a passionate relationship. In March 1835 the couple fled Paris for Switzerland, ignoring the scandal they left in their wake, they settled in Geneva where, on 18 December, Marie gave birth to a daughter, Blandine-Rachel. In the following two years Liszt and Marie travelled widely in pursuit of his career as a concert pianist, late in 1837, when Marie was heavily pregnant with their second child, the couple were at Como in Italy. Here, on 24 December in a hotel in Bellagio. They named her Francesca Gaetana Cosima, the third name being derived from St Cosmas. With her sister she was left in the care of wet nurses, while Liszt and their third child and only son, Daniel, was born on 9 May 1839 in Venice. In 1839, while Liszt continued his travels, Marie took the risk of returning to Paris with her daughters. Liszts solution was to remove the girls from Marie and place them with his mother, Anna Liszt, by this means, both Marie and Liszt could continue their independent lives. Relations between the couple cooled, and by 1841 they were seeing little of other, it is likely that both engaged in other affairs. By 1845 the breach between them was such that they were communicating only through third parties, Liszt forbade contact between mother and daughters, Marie accused him of attempting to steal the fruits of a mothers womb, while Liszt insisted on his sole right to decide the childrens future. Marie threatened to fight him like a lioness, but soon gave up the struggle, though they were living in the same city, she did not see either of her daughters for five years, until 1850. Cosima and Blandine remained with Anna Liszt until 1850, joined eventually by Daniel, Cosimas biographer George Marek describes Anna as a simple, uneducated, unworldly but warmhearted woman

22.
Franz Seraph von Pfistermeister
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Franz Seraph von Pfistermeister, was the court secretary and State Council of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Franz Seraph Freiherr von Pfistermeister was born on 14 December 1820 in Amberg, after attending the gymnasium in Amberg, Franz Pfistermeister began his career in the Royal Bavarian governmental service as military fiscal adjunct. In 1849 he was appointed to the Court Office in Munich, because of his opposition to Richard Wagner, and his costly promotion by King Ludwig II in 1866, his dismissal from the 1866 service was the highest immediate service. From 1864 to 1895 he served as State Council of the Kingdom of Bavaria and he died on the 2 March 1912 in his home on Knöbelstraße, Munich, where he lived from 1881. His grave with a landmarked bust is located in the old cemetery in Munich. Attribution This article is based on the translation of the article of the German Wikipedia. A list of contributors can be there at the History section. Pustet, Regensburg 1983, ISBN 3-7917-0792-2, p.586 Hermann Rumschöttel, in, Alois Schmid, Die Herrscher Bayerns. Beck, München 2001, ISBN 3-406-48230-9, p.350

23.
Baron Karl Ludwig von der Pfordten
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Ludwig Karl Heinrich Freiherr von der Pfordten was a Saxon and Bavarian attorney and politician. Von der Pfordten studied law at the University of Heidelberg and Erlangen, in 1833 he became a professor in Würzburg. In 1843 he moved to the University of Leipzig, from 1845 he served as its president, in March 1848 he was appointed Saxon Interior Minister and Education Minister under Prime Minister Karl Braun. When Braun resigned in February 1849, von der Pfordten returned to Bavaria and was appointed Minister-President of Bavaria and his project was to unite the German middle-sized powers under Bavarian leadership against Prussia and Austria as a Third Germany. Thus, he was responsible that Bavaria in actuality torpedoed the project of the Erfurt Union. He then was the Bavarian envoy for the Frankfurt Parliament, in 1864 von der Pfordten returned to power when King Ludwig II of Bavaria restored him. He resigned again in December 1866, since his placement efforts had failed and Bavaria had lost the Austro-Prussian War as an ally of Austria

24.
Ekkehard Schall
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Ekkehard Schall was a German stage and screen actor/director. He was one of the interpreters of Brechts works and together with Helene Weigel a member of the Berliner Ensemble. Schalls first went on stage in 1947 in Magdeburg, after engagements in Frankfurt and on the Neuen Bühne in Berlin, Bertolt Brecht hired him in 1952 as part of the Berliner Ensemble. Schall played here till 1995, for 14 years as intendant and he played more than 60 roles, for example, Ui in Brechts Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui more than 500 times. Schall was honored in 1959 with the Kunstpreis der DDR, in 1962 and 1979 with the Nationalpreis der DDR and he was married to Brechts daughter Barbara Brecht-Schall and is the father of actress Johanna Schall. Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-13413-22002 Buckower Barometer, Frankfurt Insel, ISBN 3-458-17102-9 Ekkehard Schall at the Internet Movie Database

25.
Franz Liszt
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Franz Liszt was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary. Liszt gained renown in Europe during the nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School and he left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated many 20th-century ideas and trends. Franz Liszt was born to Anna Liszt and Adam Liszt on October 22,1811, in the village of Doborján in Sopron County, in the Kingdom of Hungary, Liszts father played the piano, violin, cello and guitar. He had been in the service of Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy and knew Haydn, Hummel, at age six, Franz began listening attentively to his fathers piano playing and showed an interest in both sacred and Romani music. Adam began teaching him the piano at age seven, and Franz began composing in an elementary manner when he was eight and he appeared in concerts at Sopron and Pressburg in October and November 1820 at age 9. After the concerts, a group of wealthy sponsors offered to finance Franzs musical education in Vienna, There Liszt received piano lessons from Carl Czerny, who in his own youth had been a student of Beethoven and Hummel. He also received lessons in composition from Antonio Salieri, then director of the Viennese court. Liszts public debut in Vienna on December 1,1822, at a concert at the Landständischer Saal, was a great success and he was greeted in Austrian and Hungarian aristocratic circles and also met Beethoven and Schubert. In spring 1823, when his one-year leave of absence came to an end, Adam Liszt therefore took his leave of the Princes services. At the end of April 1823, the returned to Hungary for the last time. At the end of May 1823, the family went to Vienna again, towards the end of 1823 or early 1824, Liszts first composition to be published, his Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli, appeared as Variation 24 in Part II of Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Liszts inclusion in the Diabelli project—he was described in it as an 11 year old boy, born in Hungary—was almost certainly at the instigation of Czerny, his teacher, Liszt was the only child composer in the anthology. After his fathers death in 1827, Liszt moved to Paris, to earn money, Liszt gave lessons in piano playing and composition, often from early morning until late at night. His students were scattered across the city and he often had to long distances. Because of this, he kept uncertain hours and also took up smoking, the following year he fell in love with one of his pupils, Caroline de Saint-Cricq, the daughter of Charles Xs minister of commerce, Pierre de Saint-Cricq. Her father, however, insisted that the affair be broken off, Liszt fell very ill, to the extent that an obituary notice was printed in a Paris newspaper, and he underwent a long period of religious doubts and pessimism. He again stated a wish to join the Church but was dissuaded this time by his mother and he had many discussions with the Abbé de Lamennais, who acted as his spiritual father, and also with Chrétien Urhan, a German-born violinist who introduced him to the Saint-Simonists

26.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and he lived his remaining years in the care of his mother, and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and died in 1900. Nietzsches body of work touched widely on art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from figures such as Schopenhauer, Wagner. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism, born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on the day of Nietzsches birth, Nietzsches parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler, married in 1843, the year before their sons birth. They had two children, a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph. Nietzsches father died from an ailment in 1849, Ludwig Joseph died six months later. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsches maternal grandmother, after the death of Nietzsches grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre. Nietzsche attended a school and then, later, a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug, Rudolf Wagner. In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg, because his father had worked for the state the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta. He transferred and studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and he also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led Germania, a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German, a 2a in Greek and Latin, a 2b in French, History, and Physics, while at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid. After graduation in September 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in theology, for a short time he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester, he stopped his studies and lost his faith. In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith

27.
Mathilde Wesendonck
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Mathilde Wesendonck was a German poet and author. She is best known as the friend and possible paramour of Richard Wagner, agnes Mathilde Luckemeyer was born in Elberfeld in the Rhineland of Germany in 1828. In 1848 she married the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck, Otto was a great admirer of Wagners music, and after he and Mathilde met the composer in Zurich in 1852, he placed a cottage on his estate at Wagners disposal. By 1857, Wagner had become infatuated with Mathilde and it is not known whether she returned his affections to the same degree, or if the affair - if there was one - was ever consummated. Nevertheless, the episode inspired Wagner to put aside his work on Der Ring des Nibelungen, in 1858, Wagner’s wife Minna intercepted a romantic letter from Wagner to Mathilde. After the resulting confrontation, Wagner left Zürich alone, for Venice, Minna went to Dresden to stay with her family. She wrote to Mathilde before departing for Dresden, I must tell you with a heart that you have succeeded in separating my husband from me after nearly twenty-two years of marriage. May this noble deed contribute to peace of mind, to your happiness. In her autobiographical reminiscences Mathilde later wrote about Wagners stay in Zürich, in 1866 Mathilde met with Johannes Brahms in Zürich and enabled him to study some of Wagners manuscripts. Mathilde Wesendonck died in Altmünster in 1902, and she is buried at the Alten Friedhof with the Wesendonck family in Bonn, gedichte, Volkslieder, Legenden, Sagen Märchen u. Märchen Spiele Natur-Mythen, Mai 1865 Genovefa, Trauerspiel in 3 Aufzügen Gudrun. Mathilde Wesendonck was portrayed by Valentina Cortese in the 1955 film Magic Fire and her legacy as assumed lover of Richard Wagner lives on with reference to her in Rhett Millers song Our Love from the album The Instigator. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, works by or about Mathilde Wesendonck in libraries

28.
Peter Hofmann
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Peter Hofmann was a German tenor who had a successful performance career within the fields of opera, rock, pop, and musical theatre. He first rose to prominence in 1976 as a heldentenor at the Bayreuth festivals Jahrhundertring in 1976 and these difficulties led him to completely abandon his opera career in 1989 in favor of pursuing a full-time career in popular music. He continued to pop and rock songs until his retirement from performance due to health reasons in 1999. He had been diagnosed with Parkinsons disease in 1994, Hofmann was born in Marienbad, German Sudetenland, and grew up in Darmstadt. In his youth, before receiving any training in classical music and he served seven years in the West German Armed Forces, during which time he began studying singing privately. After being honorably discharged with a bonus, he entered the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe where he was trained as an opera singer. Hofmann made his opera debut in 1972 as Tamino in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts The Magic Flute at Theater Lübeck. He sang his first Siegmund in Richard Wagners Die Walküre, a role which he closely associated with. He was also heard at Bayreuth as the heroes in Parsifal and Lohengrin, as Tristan in Tristan und Isolde. He subsequently appeared in Stuttgart, Paris, Vienna, London, Chicago and he is best known for singing the heldentenor roles of Wagner, he has performed Siegmund, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Tristan and Loge, notably at the Bayreuth Festival where he first appeared in 1976. He was heard at the Metropolitan Opera from 1980 to 1988, in Lohengrin, Parsifal, Die Meistersinger, at the same time as singing classic roles in opera, Hofmann was also busy performing and recording popular music. He performed concerts of Elvis Presley songs and other rock songs on tour across Europe. He made a number of pop albums which sold well in Europe such as Rock Classics, in 1987, Hallmark released Songs for the Holidays, an album featuring Hofmann and his wife Deborah Sasson. By the late 1980s, Hofmann had abandoned opera completely in favour of musical theatre, from 1990 to 1991, he played the title role in The Phantom of the Opera, in Hamburg, making 300 appearances in the show. He also hosted a TV show in Germany, Hofmann was married and divorced twice, the second time to singer Deborah Sasson from 1983 to 1990. His divorces cost him a fortune, and he lived the last years of his life in relative poverty, Peter Hofmann moved to Bayreuth and spent his time writing his autobiography and supporting research through the Peter Hofmann Parkinson Project. After battling Parkinsons disease for more than a decade, he died of pneumonia in November 2010 at the age of 66, a 1986 performance as Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine, was released on Pioneer Classics in 2000. Hofmann is also heard in Leonard Bernsteins live recording of Tristan und Isolde

29.
Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld
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Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a German Heldentenor and the creator of the role of Tristan in Richard Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde. His career was curtailed by an illness which killed him at the age of 29. Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld was born in Munich, a son of the famous painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, later, he became a pupil of Kreuzschule in Dresden, home of the Dresdner Kreuzchor. This may have influenced his decision not to follow the tradition of becoming a professional painter but to study singing instead. He made his début in 1858 at Karlsruhe, by 1860, he had also sung at the Semperoper in Dresden and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, appearing in Bellinis Norma and Webers Der Freischütz. He soon gained fame as an intelligent and dedicated singer, with a strong voice especially suited to works by Richard Wagner. In 1860, Schnorr married the Danish-born soprano Malvina Garrigues, who was ten years his senior, King Ludwig II of Bavaria heard the tenor as Lohengrin in 1861. This performance is said to have one of a series that turned the king into an ardent supporter of Wagner. In 1862, Schnorr and his wife met Wagner himself in Biebrich near Wiesbaden, Wagner asked them to sing passages from his new opera, Tristan und Isolde, apparently, the composer was impressed by the results. An attempt to stage the opera in Vienna failed after over 70 rehearsals. It was at Wagners own request that Schnorr von Carolsfeld and his wife were then cast as Tristan and Isolde, the premiere finally took place in Munich on June 10,1865, but the work received mixed reviews, with some critics even calling it indecent. It was given again on June 13 and 19, and by royal command on July 1, on July 9 Schnorr sang in The Flying Dutchman. This proved to be his final Wagnerian performance, as he died suddenly in Dresden on July 21 and his mysterious and early death made him a legend, and it was often attributed by medical laymen to the enormous exertions required of a Wagnerian Heldentenor. In reality, however, a followed by rheumatic complications had caused an apoplexic event to which the overweight tenor succumbed. Following her husbands death, Malvina retired from the stage, references Sources David Ewen, Encyclopedia of the Opera. Www. mild-und-leise. de, Biography of Malvine Schnorr von Carolsfeld

30.
Gwyneth Jones (soprano)
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Dame Gwyneth Jones, DBE is a Welsh operatic dramatic soprano. Jones was born in Pontnewynydd, Wales, before becoming a professional singer, she worked as a secretary at the Pontypool foundry. She studied music at the Royal College of Music, London, after making her professional debut in 1962 as a mezzo-soprano in Glucks opera Orfeo ed Euridice, she was engaged by the Zurich Opera House. Jones came to prominence in 1964 when she stood in for Leontyne Price as Leonora in Verdis Il trovatore at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Her career then developed rapidly, and she met with success as Aïda, Leonore, Desdemona, Elisabeth, Donna Anna, Cio-cio-san, Lady Macbeth, Santuzza, Octavian, Médée and Tosca. From these, she proceeded to heavier roles like Chrysothemis, Salome. She made her debut at Teatro alla Scala as Leonora in Il Trovatore on 4 April 1967 and she returned to La Scala as the title role of Salome in January 1974. On 24 November 1972, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House of New York as Sieglinde in Die Walküre. Until her last appearance at the Met on 22 April 1995, she sang 11 parts in 10 operas for 93 times at the Met, in August 1979 she made her debut at Salzburg Summer Festival as the Marschallin. Joness large-scaled, powerful dramatic soprano voice, unusually robust vocal stamina, stage presence and it was recorded and filmed in 1979 and 1980 for both video and audio discs. The recording won a Grammy in 1983, while best known for her work in the Wagner-Strauss-Puccini repertoire, her versatility enabled her to take on other roles, such as Poppea, Hanna Glawari and Norma. The soprano part in the Symphony No,9, titled Vision of Eternity, of Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott was written for, and premiered by, her. In 2003 Jones made her debut as director and costume designer in a production of Der fliegende Holländer in Weimar. She has also given master-classes for young singers and acted as an adjudicator in international vocal competitions, in June 2007, she created the role of the Queen of Hearts in the world premiere of Unsuk Chins new opera, Alice in Wonderland, at the Bavarian State Opera. In February 2008 she sang the part of Herodias in Stephen Langridges production of Richard Strauss Salome at Malmö Opera in Sweden, Jones also took part in a piece of musical theatre about the women of the Wagner clan and their influences on the Bayreuth Festival entitled Wagnerin. Ein Haus der Kunstmusik, directed by Sven Holm at the 2012 Munich Opera Festival, in it, she portrayed the part of Cosima Wagner. In March 2016, at the age of 79, Jones made her debut as the Countess in Tchaikovskys The Queen of Spades in a new production of the opera at the Staatstheater Braunschweig. She takes on the role of Anne Langley, a former rival to Jean Horton

31.
Malvina Garrigues
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Malvina Garrigues, later Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a Portuguese operatic soprano who was born in Denmark and made her career in Germany. She and her husband Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld created the roles in Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde in 1865. Her given name appears as Malwina and Malwine but Malvina is the right spelling. Eugénia Malvina Garrigues was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the daughter of the Portuguese consul there, João António Henriques Garrigues, portugals Queen Maria II assigned her father as consul to Denmark by decree of 17 November 1825. So there is no Brazilian ascendency in Malvina Garrigues, as she was christened in the Portuguese consulate as a Portuguese citizen and she studied in Paris with Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García. She was great-grand-niece of David Garrick and her first cousin was Danish-American doctor Henry Jacques Garrigues. She made her debut in Giacomo Meyerbeers Robert le diable in Breslau in 1841, from 1849 to 1853 she worked at the ducal Hoftheater at Coburg, and in Gotha and Hamburg. In 1854 she was engaged by the Karlsruhe Opera, where she met Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld and they appeared there together in such operas as Les Huguenots. They became engaged in 1857 and married in April 1860, the same year they were engaged by the Dresden Court Opera. After conducting 70 rehearsals of his Tristan und Isolde in Vienna and still finding the singers wanting, Richard Wagner turned to Malvina, the premiere was set for 15 May 1865 in Munich, but had to be postponed to 10 June owing to Malvinas hoarseness. After Ludwigs sudden and untimely death at the age of 29 on 21 July 1865, only six weeks after the premiere, Malvina sank into a deep depression and never sang again. She took up spiritualism, and was influenced by one of her pupils to believe she was destined to marry Wagner. This caused her to be jealous of Cosima von Bülow, who was living openly with Wagner at Tribschen. She later taught singing at Frankfurt, her pupils included Heinrich Gudehus, Malvina Garrigues Schnorr von Carolsfeld also wrote a small number of songs dedicated to Jenny Lind, to texts by Heinrich Heine and Lord Byron. She published some poetry by herself and her husband and she died in Karlsruhe in 1904, aged 78, was cremated in Heidelberg, and her ashes are located in Dresden. She has been the subject of a stage show, O. Created by Dame Gwyneth Jones, who played her in the 1983 film Wagner. Malvina Garrigues at the bayerisches musiker lexikon online Malvina Garrigues at Find a Grave

32.
Albert Niemann (tenor)
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Albert Wilhelm Karl Niemann was a leading German tenor opera singer especially associated with the operas of Richard Wagner. He gave important premieres in France, Germany, England and the United States, born in Erxleben, near Magdeburg, Niemann lost his father at an early age and was brought up by his mother, a woman of almost unwomanly hardness who lived to be ninety. He was apprenticed to an engine-maker, but ran away to Dresden to make his own life and he grew up with a Germanic dedication to hunting but also student-like, reading extensively in science, history and philosophy. He was not particularly sociable or tactful, was blunt in speech, Niemann made a debut in Dessau in 1849, singing in minor roles and in chorus. He received training from Fritz Schneider, from Albert Nusch and from Gilbert Duprez in Paris, until 1866 he had various engagements in Stuttgart, Königsberg, Stettin, and from 1854 in Hannover. At Hannover he sang Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Rienzi and he had a large physique and a large voice to match. In 1859 he married the soprano Marie Seebach, however it is said that marriage ended in divorce after he threw her out of a first-floor window. Niemann visited Wagner in the Asyl, at the composers invitation, Wagner had him in mind to create the role of Siegfried. From 1859, Wagner had involved Niemann in his plan to form a model German company to perform some operas, including Tristan und Isolde, however, the projected Isolde, Frau Bürde-Ney, could not be released from a Leipzig contract, and the project foundered. However, Paris issued a command for Tannhäuser, and Niemann obtained a nine-month contract to join these rehearsals in September 1860. Hans von Bülow had little time for Niemann, either for his forced timbre or for his loutishness towards Wagner. He had learned that a Parisian faction intended to disrupt the production, the performances were utterly disrupted, and Niemann remained disingenuously aloof from Wagners artistic claims throughout. Baudelaire wrote that Niemann had sung out of tune with deplorable assiduity, the Meyerbeer press, however, took Niemanns side, and he returned to Hanover to sing Raoul in Les Huguenots. In 1864, Niemann sang as guest in two performances of Tannhäuser at Munich, and in one of Lohengrin by the arrangement of Ludwig II, shortly before the death of King Maximilian II of Bavaria. Ludwig invited Niemann to repeat these roles in Munich in 1866, but war intervened, in the year he was again invited. In 1866, he became a member of the Berlin Opera, in April 1870, he sang Walther in the Berlin Meistersinger premiere. As Tichatschek had grown old, and after Ludwig Schnorrs death in 1865, in 1871, he married the actress Hedwig Raabe. By 1874, Wagner had mentally settled on Niemann for the role of Siegmund in the complete Ring cycle as it was to be performed at Bayreuth, however, his departure gave Wagner the opportunity to coach Georg Unger as Siegfried

33.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
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Giacomo Meyerbeer was a German opera composer of Jewish birth who has been described as perhaps the most successful stage composer of the nineteenth century. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera decisive character, Meyerbeers grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra and they set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a very wealthy Berlin family, Meyerbeer began his career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation and he was at his peak with his operas Les Huguenots and Le prophète, his last opera was performed posthumously. His operas made him the most frequently performed composer at the leading opera houses in the nineteenth century. He was a supporter of Richard Wagner, enabling the first production of the latters opera. He was commissioned to write the patriotic opera Ein Feldlager in Schlesien to celebrate the reopening of the Berlin Royal Opera House in 1844, apart from around 50 songs, Meyerbeer wrote little except for the stage. Meyerbeers works are infrequently performed today. Meyerbeers birthname was Jacob Liebmann Beer, he was born in Tasdorf, near Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, to a Jewish family. His father was the wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer and his mother, Amalia Wulff, to whom he was particularly devoted. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer and he was to adopt the surname Meyerbeer on the death of his grandfather Liebmann Meyer Wulff and the first name Giacomo during his period of study in Italy, around 1817. Judah Beer was a leader of the Berlin Jewish community and maintained a synagogue in his house which leaned towards reformist views. Jacob Beer wrote a cantata for performance at this synagogue. The brothers Alexander von Humboldt, the renowned naturalist, geographer and explorer, beers first keyboard instructor was Franz Lauska, a pupil of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and a favoured teacher at the Berlin court. Beer also became one of Muzio Clementis pupils while Clementi was in Berlin, the boy made his public debut in 1801 playing Mozarts D minor Piano Concerto in Berlin. Beer, as he named himself, studied with Antonio Salieri. Louis Spohr organised a concert for Beer at Berlin in 1804 and continued his acquaintance with the lad later in Vienna, beers first stage work, the ballet Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen was produced in March 1810 at the Court Opera in Berlin

34.
Gabriel Byrne
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Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londons Royal Court Theatre in 1979, Byrnes screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken. Byrne has also produced films, including the Academy Award–nominated In the Name of the Father. One of Byrnes most identifiable roles is that of Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO drama In Treatment, for which he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Satellite Awards. Byrne, the first of six children, was born in Walkinstown, Dublin 12, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, the son of a cooper and soldier, Dan, and a hospital nurse, Eileen from Elphin, County Roscommon. He has four siblings, Donal, Thomas, Breda, and Margaret, another, Marian, Byrne was raised a strict Roman Catholic and educated in Ardscoil Éanna in Crumlin, where he later taught Spanish and History. About his early training to become a priest, he said in an interview, I spent five years in the seminary, I realised subsequently that I didnt. He attended University College Dublin, where he studied archaeology and linguistics and he played soccer in Dublin with Stella Maris. In January 2011, he spoke in an interview on The Meaning of Life about being abused by priests during his childhood. Byrne worked in archaeology when he left UCD and he maintained his love of his language, later writing the first television drama in Irish, Draíocht, on Irelands national Irish-language television station, TG4, when it began broadcasting in 1996. Before becoming an actor, Byrne had many jobs, including archaeologist, cook and he started acting at age 29, and began his career on stage with the Focus Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He later joined the Performing Arts Course in Sandymount Dublin 4, Byrne came to prominence on the final season of the Irish television show The Riordans, subsequently starring in his own spin-off series, Bracken. His first play for television was Michael Feeney Callans Love Is and he made his film debut in 1981, as King Uther Pendragon in John Boormans King Arthur epic, Excalibur. In 1983, he appeared with Richard Burton in the miniseries Wagner, co-starring Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, in 2007 Gabriel Byrne topped Kerry Film Festivals jury lineup. Upon his return to theatre in 2008, he appeared as King Arthur in Camelot with the New York Philharmonic from 7 to 10 May, following the footsteps of veteran actors Richard Burton and Richard Harris. Byrne was cast in an adaptation of Flann OBriens metafictional novel At Swim-Two-Birds, alongside Colin Farrell. Actor Brendan Gleeson was set to direct the film, in October 2009, however, Gleeson expressed fear that, should the Irish Film Board be abolished as planned by the Irish State, the production might fall through. Byrne starred as therapist Dr. Paul Weston in the critically acclaimed HBO primetime weeknight series In Treatment from 2008 to 2010

35.
William Walton
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Sir William Turner Walton, OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several genres and styles. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzars Feast, the Viola Concerto, born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, Façade, which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist, in middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife Susana on the Italian island of Ischia. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a modernist and his only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida, was among the works to be so labelled and has made little impact in opera houses. In his last years, his works back into critical fashion, his later compositions. Walton was a worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be performed in the twenty-first century. Walton was born into a family in Oldham, Lancashire. His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was a musician who had trained at the Royal Manchester College of Music under Charles Hallé, charless wife, Louisa Maria, had been a singer before their marriage. William Waltons musical talents were spotted when he was still a young boy and he was more successful as a singer, he and his elder brother sang in their fathers choir, taking part in performances of large-scale works by Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn and others. Walton was sent to a school, but in 1912 his father saw a newspaper advertisement for probationer choristers at Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford. The boy and his mother missed their intended train from Manchester to Oxford because Waltons father had spent the money for the fare in a public house. Louisa Walton had to borrow the fares from a greengrocer, although they arrived in Oxford after the entrance trials were over, Mrs Walton successfully pleaded for her son to be heard, and he was accepted. He remained at the school for the next six years. At the age of sixteen Walton became an undergraduate of Christ Church and it is sometimes said that he was Oxfords youngest undergraduate since Henry VIII, and though this is probably not correct, he was nonetheless among the youngest. He came under the influence of Hugh Allen, the dominant figure in Oxfords musical life, Allen introduced Walton to modern music, including Stravinskys Petrushka, and enthused him with the mysteries of the orchestra

36.
Frederick Augustus II of Saxony
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Frederick Augustus II was King of Saxony and a member of the House of Wettin. He was the eldest son of Maximilian, Prince of Saxony — younger son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony — by his first wife, Caroline of Bourbon, from his birth, it was clear that one day Frederick Augustus would become the ruler of Saxony. His father was the son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony who left surviving male issue. When the King Frederick Augustus I died and Anton succeeded him as King, Frederick Augustus became second in line to the throne and he was an officer in the War of the Sixth Coalition. However, he had little interest in military affairs, the July Revolution of 1830 in France marked the beginning of disturbances in Saxony that autumn. The people claimed a change in the constitution and demanded a young regent of the kingdom to share the government with the King Anton, on 1 September the Prince Maximilian renounced his rights of succession in favor of his son Frederick Augustus, who was proclaimed Prince Co-Regent of Saxony. On 2 February 1832 Frederick Augustus brought Free Autonomy to the cities, also, by an edict of 17 March of that year, the farmers were freed from the corvée and hereditary submission. On 6 June 1836, King Anton died and Frederick Augustus succeeded him, as an intelligent man, he was quickly popular with the people as he had been since the time of his regency. The new king solved political questions only from a sense of duty. Mostly he preferred to leave things on the hands of his ministers. A standardized jurisdiction for Saxony created the Criminal Code of 1836, during the Revolutionary disturbances of 1848, he appointed liberal ministers in the government, lifted censorship, and remitted a liberal electoral law. On 28 April Frederick August II dissolved the Parliament, in 1849, Frederick Augustus was forced to flee to the Königstein Fortress. The May Uprising was crushed by Saxon and Prussian troops and Frederick was able to return only a few days. In 1844 Frederick Augustus, accompanied by his personal physician Carl Gustav Carus, among places they visited were Lyme Regis where he purchased from the local fossil collector and dealer, Mary Anning, an ichthyosaur skeleton for his own extensive natural history collection. During a journey in Tyrol, he had an accident in Brennbüchel in which he fell in front of a horse that stepped on his head, on 8 August 1854, he died in the Gasthof Neuner. He was buried on 16 August in the Katholische Hofkirche of Dresden, in Dresden on 24 April 1833 Frederick Augustus married secondly with the Princess Maria of Bavaria, daughter of the King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. Like his first marriage, this was childless, the musician Theodor Uhlig was an illegitimate son of Frederick Augustus. Without legitimate issue, after his death Frederick Augustus was succeeded by his younger brother, Johann

37.
Ludwig I of Bavaria
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Ludwig I was king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states. Born in the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts in Strasbourg, he was the son of Count Palatine Maximilian Joseph of Zweibrücken by his first wife Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt, at the time of his birth, his father was an officer in the French army stationed at Strasbourg. He was the godson and namesake of Louis XVI of France and his father assumed the title of King of Bavaria on 1 January 1806. Starting in 1803 Ludwig studied in Landshut where he was taught by Johann Michael Sailer, on 12 October 1810 he married Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, the daughter of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The wedding was the occasion of the first-ever Oktoberfest, as commander of the 1st Bavarian Division in VII Corps, he served under Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre in 1809. He led his division in action at the Battle of Abensberg on 20 April, on 14 October, Bavaria made a formal declaration of war against Napoleonic France. The treaty was passionately backed by Crown Prince Ludwig and by Marshal von Wrede, already at the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Ludwig advocated a German national policy. Until 1816 the crown prince served as governor-general of the Duchy of Salzburg and his second son Otto, the later King of Greece, was born there. Between 1816 and 1825, he spent his years in Würzburg and he also made numerous trips to Italy and stayed often in the Villa Malta in Rome, which he later also bought. Ludwig supported generously as a Philhellene the Greek War of Independence, in 1817 Ludwig was also involved in the fall of Prime Minister Count Max Josef von Montgelas whose policies he had opposed. He succeeded his father on the throne in 1825, Ludwigs rule was strongly affected by his enthusiasm for the arts and women and by his overreaching royal assertiveness. An enthusiast for the German Middle Ages, Ludwig ordered the re-erection of several monasteries in Bavaria which had closed during the German Mediatisation. He reorganized the regions of Bavaria in 1837 and re-introduced the old names Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia. He changed his royal titles to Ludwig, King of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, Duke in Swabia, Ludwigs plan to reunite the eastern part of the Palatinate with Bavaria could not be realized. In 1815, Badens possession of Manheim and Heidelberg was confirmed, Ludwig founded the city of Ludwigshafen there as a Bavarian rival to Mannheim. Ludwig moved the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität from Landshut to Munich in 1826, the king also encouraged Bavarias industrialization. He initiated the Ludwig Canal between the rivers Main and the Danube, in 1835 the first German railway was constructed in his domain, between the cities of Fürth and Nuremberg. Bavaria joined the Zollverein in 1834, as Ludwig had supported the Greek fight of independence his second son Otto was elected king of Greece in 1832

38.
Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen
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Therese Charlotte Luise of Saxony-Hildburghausen was a queen consort of Bavaria as the wife of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. Therese was a daughter of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, and Duchess Charlotte Georgine of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, eldest daughter of Charles II, in 1809, she was on the list of possible brides for Napoleon, but in 1810 married the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig. Their wedding was the occasion of the first ever Oktoberfest, during the numerous love affairs of her husband, Therese suffered but tolerated the situation. She did not refrain, however, from demonstrating her disapproval in discreet ways, in 1831, she left town during one of his affairs and she was very popular and was considered to embody an ideal image of queen, wife and mother. She was involved in a number of charitable organizations for widows, orphans. She was the object of sympathy during her husbands infidelity with Lola Montez. Therese and Ludwig had children, Maximilian, who married Princess Marie of Prussia, mathilde Caroline, who married Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Otto, who married Duchess Amalie of Oldenburg, King of Greece as Otto I from 1832 to 1862, luitpold, who married Archduchess Auguste of Austria, Prince Regent of Bavaria. Adelgunde, who married Francis V, Duke of Modena, hildegard, who married Archduke Albert of Austria Duke of Teschen. Adalbert, who married Infanta Amelia Philippina of Spain, kingdom of Bavaria, Sovereign of the Order of Saint Elizabeth

39.
Pauline von Metternich
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She was an important promoter of the work of the German composer Richard Wagner and the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. She was also instrumental to the creation of the couture industry. Princess Pauline von Metternich was born into the Hungarian noble family of Sándor de Slawnitza and her father, Moritz Sándor, described as a furious rider, was known throughout the Habsburg empire as a passionate horseman. Her mother, Princess Leontine von Metternich, was a daughter of the Austrian chancellor Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and it was at his home in Vienna that Pauline spent almost her whole childhood. In 1856, she married her uncle, Prince Richard von Metternich and they lived a happy conjugal life, despite his frequent love-affairs with actresses and opera prima donnas, and had three daughters. Pauline accompanied her husband, an Austrian diplomat, on his missions to the court in Dresden and then the imperial court in Paris. She played an important role in the social and cultural life of Dresden and Paris and she was a close friend and confidante of French Empress Eugénie, and, with her husband, was a prominent personality at the court of Emperor Napoleon III. She introduced fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth to the Empress and thus started his rise to fame, Pauline was an ardent patron of music, and became a leader of fashionable society. Whether in Paris or Vienna, she set the latest social trends and she taught French and Czech aristocrats to skate, and ladies to smoke cigars without fear of their reputations. She was acquainted with composers and writers, including Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod, Camille Saint-Saëns, Prosper Mérimée and Alexandre Dumas). She was an advocate for the music of Wagner in Paris and she organised salon performances of abridged versions of many famous operas, including Richard Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen, in which she took part both as a stage director and singer. In her private life, Pauline suffered several crises and disasters, as a child, she was an eyewitness to the revolution of 1848 in Vienna. In 1870 she remained at the side of Empress Eugénie in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, later she aided the Empress escape from Paris to Great Britain by secretly sending Eugénies jewels to London in a diplomatic bag. Her youngest daughter, Clementine, was injured by her dog as a child. Princess Pauline died in Vienna in 1921 and she lived through the glory and fall of the Austrian and French empires and was believed to be a living symbol of these two lost worlds. A portrait of her by French impressionist Edgar Degas, painted from a photograph, now hangs in the National Gallery, in August 1892, Pauline participated in an emancipated duel with Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg. Princess Schwarzenberg and Countess Kinsky acted as seconds, and Baroness Lubinska and it was Lubinska who insisted that they fight topless. She was concerned if a bit of clothing jammed into a wound, it could become infected

40.
Joan Plowright
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Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE, commonly known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career has spanned over six decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award and she is also one of only four actresses to have won two Golden Globes in the same year. Plowright was born in Brigg, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Daisy Margaret and William Ernest Plowright and she attended Scunthorpe Grammar School and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Plowright made her debut at Croydon in 1948 and her London debut in 1954. In 1956 she joined the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre and was cast as Margery Pinchwife in The Country Wife and she appeared with George Devine in the Eugène Ionesco play, The Chairs, Shaws Major Barbara and Saint Joan. She continued to appear on stage and in such as The Entertainer. In 1961, she received a Tony Award for her role in A Taste of Honey on Broadway, through her marriage to Laurence Olivier, she became closely associated with his work at the National Theatre from 1963 onwards. She was also Nanny in 101 Dalmatians, among her television roles, she won another Golden Globe Award and earned an Emmy Award nomination for the HBO film Stalin in 1992 as the Soviet dictators mother-in-law. In 1994, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award, in 2003, Plowright performed in the stage production Absolutely. She was appointed president of the English Stage Company in March 2009, succeeding John Mortimer. She was previously vice-president of the company, Plowright was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 Queens New Year Honours and was promoted to Dame Commander in the 2004 Queens New Year Honours. In 2014, she announced her retirement from acting, citing her declining eyesight due to macular degeneration. Plowright was first married to Roger Gage, an actor, in September 1953 and she divorced him and, in 1961, married Laurence Olivier after the ending of his 20-year marriage with the actress Vivien Leigh. The couple had three children, Richard Kerr, Tamsin Agnes Margaret and Julie-Kate, the couple remained married until Lord Oliviers death in 1989. Joan Plowrights brother, David Plowright, CBE, was an executive at Granada Television, the Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe is named in Plowrights honour. Upon her marriage to Sir Laurence Olivier, her title became Lady Olivier, however. Her husband was made a peer in 1970 and so she became Baroness Olivier. Over the years Joan Plowright has had many titles as a result of honours awarded, and the appointment of her husband as a peer in 1970

41.
Corin Redgrave
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Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and far-left political activist. Redgrave was born on 16 July 1939 in Marylebone, London and he was educated at Westminster School and Kings College, Cambridge. Redgrave played a range of character roles on film, television. On stage, he was noted for performances by Shakespeare and Noël Coward, two years later he starred in the original London production of The General from America as Benedict Arnold. When the play transferred to Broadway the following season Redgrave switched roles, in 2005, Redgrave had just finished an engagement playing the lead in King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London when he suffered a severe heart attack. In 2008, he returned to the stage in a highly praised portrayal of Oscar Wilde in the one-man-play De Profundis, in 2009, he starred in Trumbo, which opened only hours after the death of his niece, Natasha Richardson. He took the part of Sir George Grey in the New Zealand TV miniseries The Governor. He wrote a play called Blunt Speaking, in which he performed at the Minerva Theatre between 23 July -10 August 2002, Redgrave was a lifelong activist in far-left politics. With his elder sister Vanessa, he was a prominent member of the Workers Revolutionary Party, later, after the collapse of the WRP, he was involved with the Marxist Party, which the two siblings founded. Both Redgrave and his wife, Kika Markham, expressed support for activist group Viva Palestina, led by British MP George Galloway. He was also a defender of the interests of the Romani people, Corin Redgrave was part of the third generation of a theatrical dynasty spanning four generations. His parents were Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Vanessa and his first marriage was to Deirdre Deline Hamilton-Hill. They had a daughter, actress Jemma Redgrave, and a son, Luke, Redgrave and Hamilton-Hill divorced in 1975. Redgrave and Kika Markham married in 1985 in Wandsworth, London, the couple had two sons, Harvey and Arden. He wrote a memoir about his relationship with his father entitled Michael Redgrave - My Father. It also revealed his fathers bisexuality, Redgrave was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000, which continued to affect him until he died in 2010. In June 2005, he was described by his family as being in a critical but stable condition in hospital following a heart attack at a public meeting in Basildon. In March 2009, Redgrave returned to the London stage playing the role in Trumbo

Richard Burton
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Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor who was noted for his mellifluous baritone voice. Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and he was called the natural successor to Olivier by critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan. An alcoholic, Burtons failure to live up to those expectations disappointed critics and colleag

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Richard Burton in The Robe (1953)

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Richard Burton

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Burton was born in Pontrhydyfen, where his father and some of his brothers were coal miners

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Richard Burton in the film Cleopatra (1963)

Vanessa Redgrave
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Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist. She is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, and she also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy. On screen, she has starred in scores of films and is a six-time Oscar nominee and her othe

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Redgrave at the Berlin International Film Festival, 2011

Marthe Keller
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Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress and opera director. Marthe studied ballet as a child, but stopped after an accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre, kellers earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin and the German film Wilder Reiter GmbH. She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s

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Marthe Keller in Monte Carlo in 1975

John Gielgud
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Sir Arthur John Gielgud OM CH was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trio of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a member of hi

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Noël Coward with Lilian Braithwaite, his, and later Gielgud's, co-star in The Vortex

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Mrs Patrick Campbell and Edith Evans, 1920s co-stars with Gielgud

Ralph Richardson
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Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He worked in films throughout most of his career, and played more than sixty cinema roles, from an artistic but not theatrical background, Richardson had had no thought of a stage

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Richardson in 1949

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Charles Doran

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Peggy Ashcroft in 1936, near the beginning of her long professional association with Richardson

Laurence Olivier
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Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles, late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles. His family

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Olivier in 1973

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Interior of All Saints, Margaret Street

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Peggy Ashcroft, a contemporary and friend of Olivier's at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, photographed in 1936

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Olivier, with his first wife Jill Esmond (left), in 1932

Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman in

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Father Mathew Bridge, formerly Dublin Bridge, is understood to be near the ancient "Ford of the Hurdles" (Baile Átha Cliath), the original crossing point on the River Liffey.

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Dublin Castle was the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland until 1922.

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Henrietta Street, developed in the 1720s, is the earliest Georgian Street in Dublin.

Vittorio Storaro
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In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild judged Storaro one of historys ten most influential cinematographers. The son of a film projectionist, Storaro began studying photography at the age of 11 and he went on to formal cinematography studies at the national Italian film school, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia,

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Vittorio Storaro at Cannes in 2001

Richard Wagner
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Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fu

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Richard Wagner in 1871

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Wagner's birthplace, at 3, the Brühl, Leipzig

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Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer (1835), by Alexander von Otterstedt

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Wagner c. 1840, by Ernest Benedikt Kietz

Ludwig II of Bavaria
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Ludwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He is sometimes called the Swan King or der Märchenkönig and he also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, and Duke in Swabia. He succeeded to the throne aged 18, two years later Bavaria and Austria fought a war against Prussia, which they

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Ludwig II just after his accession to the throne of Bavaria in 1864

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Ludwig II and Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria in 1867

Georg Solti
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Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and his career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and being of Jewish background he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in Londo

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Solti by Allan Warren, 1975

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Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest

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Hungarian State Opera House

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Solti (l) with the pianist Nikita Magaloff

Neuschwanstein Castle
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Neuschwanstein Castle is a nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat, Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian pub

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Neuschwanstein Castle

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Northward view from Mount Säuling (2,047 m or 6,716 ft) on the border between Bavaria and Tyrol: Schwangau between large Forggensee reservoir (1952) and Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein palaces

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Neuschwanstein project drawing (Christian Jank 1869)

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Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria

Herrenchiemsee
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Herrenchiemsee is a complex of royal buildings on Herreninsel, an island in the Chiemsee, Bavarias largest lake,60 km south east of Munich. Together with the island of Frauenchiemsee and the uninhabited Krautinsel it forms the municipality of Chiemsee. According to tradition, the Benedictine abbey of Herrenchiemsee was established about 765 by Duke

Munich Residenz
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The Munich Residenz is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs of the House of Wittelsbach in the centre of the city of Munich, Germany. The Residenz is the largest city palace in Germany and is open to visitors for its architecture, room decorations. The complex of buildings contains ten courtyards and displays 130 rooms, the three main p

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Munich Residenz, Königsbau (2014)

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Munich Residenz

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Munich Residenz in the 18th century

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17th century west wing

Siena
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Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena, the historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nations most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008, Siena is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and the Palio, a

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Capitoline Wolf at Siena Duomo. According to a legend Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus. When they fled Rome, they took the statue of She-wolf to Siena, which became a symbol of the town.

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Siena Cathedral

Tuscany
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Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, traditions, history, artistic legacy, Tuscany produces wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano and Brunello di Montalcino. Having a strong l

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Hilly landscape in Val d'Orcia

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Tuscany Toscana

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Tuscan landscape near Siena

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Cinerary urns of the Villanovan culture

Gandhi (film)
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Gandhi was written by John Briley and produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. It stars Ben Kingsley in the title role, although a practising Hindu, Gandhis embracing of other faiths, particularly Christianity and Islam, is also depicted. Gandhi was released in India on 30 November 1982, in the United Kingdom on 3 December and it was nominate

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Theatrical release poster

Reds (film)
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Reds is a 1981 American epic drama film co-written, produced and directed by Warren Beatty. The picture centers on the life and career of John Reed, Beatty stars in the lead role alongside Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant and Jack Nicholson as Eugene ONeill. The supporting cast includes Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton,

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Theatrical release poster

Abel Gance
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Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films, Jaccuse, La Roue, and the monumental Napoléon. Born in Paris in 1889, Abel Gance was the son of a prosperous doctor, Abel Flamant. Initially taking his mothers name, he was brought up

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Abel Gance by the Studio Harcourt

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Poster by Cândido de Faria for the silent film Le tragique amour de Mona Lisa (1912) written by Gance. Collection EYE Film Institute Netherlands.

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Abel Gance Napoleon

Minna Planer
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Christine Wilhelmine Minna Planer was a German actress and the first wife of composer Richard Wagner, to whom she was married for 30 years, although for the last 10 years they often lived apart. At an early age, she had a daughter with a Royal Saxon Army officer. After a stormy courtship, which involved infidelities on both sides, she married Richa

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Minna Planer (1835) by Alexander von Otterstedt

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Minna Wagner in 1853 with her dog "Peps". Watercolour by Clementine Stockar-Escher

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The gravesite of Minna Planer in Dresden.

Cosima Wagner
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Cosima Wagner was the illegitimate daughter of the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt and Marie dAgoult. Commentators have recognised Cosima as the inspiration for Wagners later works. In 1857, after a childhood largely spent under the care of her grandmother and with governesses, although the marriage produced two children, it was largely

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Cosima Wagner in 1879, painted by Franz von Lenbach

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Franz Liszt, depicted at the time of his affair with Marie d'Agoult

Franz Seraph von Pfistermeister
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Franz Seraph von Pfistermeister, was the court secretary and State Council of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Franz Seraph Freiherr von Pfistermeister was born on 14 December 1820 in Amberg, after attending the gymnasium in Amberg, Franz Pfistermeister began his career in the Royal Bavarian governmental service as military fiscal adjunct. In 1849 he was ap

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Franz Seraph Freiherr von Pfistermeister, State Council of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

Baron Karl Ludwig von der Pfordten
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Ludwig Karl Heinrich Freiherr von der Pfordten was a Saxon and Bavarian attorney and politician. Von der Pfordten studied law at the University of Heidelberg and Erlangen, in 1833 he became a professor in Würzburg. In 1843 he moved to the University of Leipzig, from 1845 he served as its president, in March 1848 he was appointed Saxon Interior Mini

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Ludwig von der Pfordten, ca. 1855

Ekkehard Schall
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Ekkehard Schall was a German stage and screen actor/director. He was one of the interpreters of Brechts works and together with Helene Weigel a member of the Berliner Ensemble. Schalls first went on stage in 1947 in Magdeburg, after engagements in Frankfurt and on the Neuen Bühne in Berlin, Bertolt Brecht hired him in 1952 as part of the Berliner E

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Ekkehard Schall's autograph, 1989.

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Ekkehard Schall (November 1989)

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Headstone on Schall's grave at Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin.

Franz Liszt
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Franz Liszt was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary. Liszt gained renown in Europe during the nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent rep

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Niccolò Paganini. His playing inspired Liszt to become a great virtuoso.

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Franz Liszt's fundraising concert for the flood victims of Pest, where he was the conductor of the orchestra. Vigadó Concert Hall, Pest, Hungary 1839.

Friedrich Nietzsche
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He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age

Mathilde Wesendonck
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Mathilde Wesendonck was a German poet and author. She is best known as the friend and possible paramour of Richard Wagner, agnes Mathilde Luckemeyer was born in Elberfeld in the Rhineland of Germany in 1828. In 1848 she married the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck, Otto was a great admirer of Wagners music, and after he and Mathilde met the composer i

Peter Hofmann
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Peter Hofmann was a German tenor who had a successful performance career within the fields of opera, rock, pop, and musical theatre. He first rose to prominence in 1976 as a heldentenor at the Bayreuth festivals Jahrhundertring in 1976 and these difficulties led him to completely abandon his opera career in 1989 in favor of pursuing a full-time car

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Hofmann as Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera in 1986

Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld
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Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a German Heldentenor and the creator of the role of Tristan in Richard Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde. His career was curtailed by an illness which killed him at the age of 29. Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld was born in Munich, a son of the famous painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, later, he became a pupil of

Gwyneth Jones (soprano)
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Dame Gwyneth Jones, DBE is a Welsh operatic dramatic soprano. Jones was born in Pontnewynydd, Wales, before becoming a professional singer, she worked as a secretary at the Pontypool foundry. She studied music at the Royal College of Music, London, after making her professional debut in 1962 as a mezzo-soprano in Glucks opera Orfeo ed Euridice, she

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The soprano in Paris, 2002

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Gwyneth Jones at the Bayreuth Festival as Brünnhilde in the Jahrhundertring, first shown in 1976 and filmed in 1980

Malvina Garrigues
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Malvina Garrigues, later Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a Portuguese operatic soprano who was born in Denmark and made her career in Germany. She and her husband Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld created the roles in Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde in 1865. Her given name appears as Malwina and Malwine but Malvina is the right spelling. Eugénia

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Malvina Garrigues Schnorr von Carolsfeld in the Wagnerian role of Isolde

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Malvina Garrigues Schnorr von Carolsfeld

Albert Niemann (tenor)
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Albert Wilhelm Karl Niemann was a leading German tenor opera singer especially associated with the operas of Richard Wagner. He gave important premieres in France, Germany, England and the United States, born in Erxleben, near Magdeburg, Niemann lost his father at an early age and was brought up by his mother, a woman of almost unwomanly hardness w

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Contents

Giacomo Meyerbeer
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Giacomo Meyerbeer was a German opera composer of Jewish birth who has been described as perhaps the most successful stage composer of the nineteenth century. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera decisive character, Meyerbeers grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style

Gabriel Byrne
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Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londons Royal Court Theatre in 1979, Byrnes screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken. Byrne has also produced films, includ

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Gabriel Byrne in 2010

William Walton
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Sir William Turner Walton, OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several genres and styles. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzars Feast, the Viola Concerto, born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leavi

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William Walton in 1928

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Christ Church, Oxford, where Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate

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Portsmouth Point by Thomas Rowlandson inspired Walton's overture of the same name.

Frederick Augustus II of Saxony
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Frederick Augustus II was King of Saxony and a member of the House of Wettin. He was the eldest son of Maximilian, Prince of Saxony — younger son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony — by his first wife, Caroline of Bourbon, from his birth, it was clear that one day Frederick Augustus would become the ruler of Saxony. His father was the son

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Frederick Augustus II

Ludwig I of Bavaria
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Ludwig I was king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states. Born in the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts in Strasbourg, he was the son of Count Palatine Maximilian Joseph of Zweibrücken by his first wife Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt, at the time of his birth, his father was an officer in the French army stationed at Strasbo

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Portrait by Joseph Stieler, 1825

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Crown Prince Ludwig, 1807 by Angelica Kauffman

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Ludwig I of Bavaria, c. 1830

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Ludwig I of Bavaria, ca 1860

Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen
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Therese Charlotte Luise of Saxony-Hildburghausen was a queen consort of Bavaria as the wife of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. Therese was a daughter of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, and Duchess Charlotte Georgine of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, eldest daughter of Charles II, in 1809, she was on the list of possible brides for Napoleon, but in 1810 marrie

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Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen

Pauline von Metternich
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She was an important promoter of the work of the German composer Richard Wagner and the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. She was also instrumental to the creation of the couture industry. Princess Pauline von Metternich was born into the Hungarian noble family of Sándor de Slawnitza and her father, Moritz Sándor, described as a furious rider, was kn

Joan Plowright
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Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE, commonly known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career has spanned over six decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award and she is also one of only four actresses to have won two Golden Globes in the same year. Plowrig

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Plowright as Jo with Angela Lansbury as Helen in the Broadway production of A Taste of Honey

Corin Redgrave
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Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and far-left political activist. Redgrave was born on 16 July 1939 in Marylebone, London and he was educated at Westminster School and Kings College, Cambridge. Redgrave played a range of character roles on film, television. On stage, he was noted for performances by Shakespeare and Noël Coward, two years

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Clockwise from top: Place de la Bourse by the Garonne, Allees du Tourny and Maison de Vin, Pierre Bridge on the Garonne, Meriadeck Commercial Centre, front of Palais Rohan Hotel, and Saint-Andre Cathedral with Bordeaux Tramway

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Coins of the Bituriges Vivisci, 5th–1st century BC, derived from the coin designs of Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul. Cabinet des Médailles.

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Merovingian tremisses minted in Bordeaux by the Church of Saint-Étienne, late 6th century. British Museum.